MeshTool... I am a noob.

[Colin S]

I assume it's something wrong with my script.txt, since I landed with this (this is the coast of the island of Niihau, in stunning ultra-hi-res, but without water being defined... and I don't know how, since documentation on how to properly format and use the script.txt file is pretty much non-existent. Please don't just post the link to the page that explains how to make the script.txt, it's useless to me. I don't understand one bit of it. I need an English translation. I don't need special landclass customization or anything, this is just a base mesh for underneath orthophotos (those of you who know me don't need to be informed of that). Anyways, here's the flop-up:


 
This is currently my script.txt, since I had no bloody idea what I was supposed to do with the bloody thingy. Laugh all you want, and for those of you who have endured my brand of stupidity you may use the nearest hard object to satisfy your frustration with the amazing Colin.
 

terrain_Natural

 
Nervous laughter. But seriously, I don't know what else to shove in there. Frankly, if it makes you feel any better, I am beyond thrilled to simply have finally successfully ground up a TIFF file and turned it into some form of workable DSF, as my partner Javier and I have been trying to make his material compatible with the silly X-Plane constraints for the last two and half months. This is literally the only delay holding me back from completing the rest of the islands, other than my three term papers due in a month and a half (hint: Acadian history is quite interesting if you actually dig into it).
 
Anyways, anyone with ANY experience in the world of the MeshTool (all praise, hallelujah) please give me a shout.
 
EDIT: For the pleasure of those who want to know how the Hawaii Photoreal project is actually coming along, here is a shot (ground texture @ 1/6th resolution) of a detail including a very good application of the HD mesh (still no ocean, sorry )

Edited October 17, 2015 by Colin S

[Cameron]

Colin,

 

You'll need to download water data (like TIGER) to produce water in MeshTool. It will need to be a part of your config file. If I remember right you'll want to use SHAPEFILE_MASK for this portion of your config.

[Carlos Garcia]

Some tools you may find useful (sorry in spanish)

 

http://www.cestomano.com/mas/xplane/#anadidos

[Colin S]

Colin,

 

You'll need to download water data (like TIGER) to produce water in MeshTool. It will need to be a part of your config file. If I remember right you'll want to use SHAPEFILE_MASK for this portion of your config.

 

Thanks Cameron! Never would have caught that without your input. Will get my rear in gear.  

 

EDIT: Rear in gear, but the Census Bureau needs to get their file names in gear. Any idea what any of these things mean?

 

 

EDIT: Re-edit: I'll just stick to last year's data, the oceans haven't changed that much... heh. Never mind. Let's see what kind of damage I can do. Cameron, you are awesome. I had come across the water shapefil thing before, but I had no idea what the heck a water shapefile was or where I was supposed to get that. Cheers! 

Edited October 18, 2015 by Colin S

[Colin S]

Some tools you may find useful (sorry in spanish)

 

http://www.cestomano.com/mas/xplane/#anadidos

 

I already used Pintaderra (once, with extreme difficulty) to smooth things out... worked alright, but I can't make it work every time, it seems to work spontaneously. I probably won't use it on my work here. As for the other tools, I'm not familiar with their purpose and I don't speak Spanish (and Google isn't exactly translating the page very well) so I'll stick with MeshTool. Thanks though

[Colin S]

This is proving to be quite an adventure... Thanks Cameron for informing me of the existence of Tiger. It turns out that the USA decided to only to map out its territorial waters this time. I'll have to read the manual again to find a way of making the rest water.

 

[Colin S]

So, this one is a legit post, not just whining again. I found out the issue with the data I was using... it's three nautical mile boundary data... that is, what the census considers important to document. I've gone looking for more extensive data sets, shapefiles that extend into "international waters." This is what the data is mapping for me, and the problem will persist into all the other islands, not just Niihau. The only shapefiles for the rest of the ocean I've found have extremely non-precise coastline definitions, which look awful . Using the SHAPEFILE_MASK command didn't exactly work with any of these. Here's what they claim they are giving me:

 

 

But when the data is processed by MeshTool, it becomes evident very quickly that they actually short-changed me and gave me the 3NM ocean *.shp:

 

 

All help is welcomed, if you know anything about where to find accurate shapefiles or how to extend the boundaries (in this case, I wish I could just tell it to make everything outside the 3NM boundary shapefile just ocean. Actually, I wish I could do that for every island). If I don't get a solution soon, I'll take it to the top and ask them about using coastline data as a mask for where to draw land and where to draw water... I'm sure it's possible, but I can't figure it out from the manual.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Colin S

[Carlos Garcia]

 

Download here 

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=29153

Edited November 7, 2015 by Carlos Garcia

[scubajuan_new]

Hey! I can walk from Nihau to Kauai

[scubajuan_new]

It would be awesome if X-Plane would allow bathymetric data and have variable transparency in the water, throw in some wave action, flowing water, water falls and wind effect; jumping whales and spinner dolphins and voila, would make flying over water a whole new experience. Imagine a UHD mesh for the Great Barrier and the Caribbean, and of course Hawaii. That would be sweeeeeet